Many dangerous errors in new Navionics cartography
- Thread starter tony_lavelle
- Start date
Bru
Well-Known Member
Well, personally I have a drawer full of Imray charts
And if course they are all bang up to date and totally error free
prv
Well-Known Member
And if course they are all bang up to date and totally error free
Only corrected to the start of the season, I'm afraid. But then the same applies to the Navionics in the plotters...
Pete
Bru
Well-Known Member
Tut tut
Erm, not if you subscribe to and use Freshest Data. From experience NTMs seem to lag a month or two behind which isn't perfect (plus it brings us back to the original issue of erroneous updates based on unverified user data) bu it's still more up to date than annually updated raster charts
tony_lavelle
Well-Known Member
It's interesting to read Navionics founder Giuseppe Carnevali's response to earlier criticisms. See http://www.navionics.com/en/navioni...evali-tells-his-view-safety-electronic-charts
To give Mr Carnevali credit, Navionics is an ambitious and brave attempt to bring marine cartography into the 21st century. It is supposed to be to marine charts what Wikipedia is to encyclopaedias. The idea of updating your charts (vector of course) automatically as soon as corrections are available makes perfect sense with the technology we have today. In most ways the marine electronics industry is 20 or 30 years behind the terrestrial IT sector - look at the way we connect instruments together on boats for instance using the various NMEA standards.
Unfortunately Navionics has not properly understood or dealt with the data quality issue. I have highlighted obvious problems in the Medway estuary, which I know well. Every time I look at the Navionics chart I see yet more glaring errors, non-existent navigation and mooring buoys, spelling mistakes (eg Chatam Reach and Slavhills Marsh) but, most worryingly, depth contours which are out by several metres. In Italy, where Navionics are based, sea depth may not be so important for navigation but it certainly is where I sail!
Any publisher of data, whether marine charts or encyclopaedias, should surely state where their data comes from and how it is verified. I think we should be told!
To give Mr Carnevali credit, Navionics is an ambitious and brave attempt to bring marine cartography into the 21st century. It is supposed to be to marine charts what Wikipedia is to encyclopaedias. The idea of updating your charts (vector of course) automatically as soon as corrections are available makes perfect sense with the technology we have today. In most ways the marine electronics industry is 20 or 30 years behind the terrestrial IT sector - look at the way we connect instruments together on boats for instance using the various NMEA standards.
Unfortunately Navionics has not properly understood or dealt with the data quality issue. I have highlighted obvious problems in the Medway estuary, which I know well. Every time I look at the Navionics chart I see yet more glaring errors, non-existent navigation and mooring buoys, spelling mistakes (eg Chatam Reach and Slavhills Marsh) but, most worryingly, depth contours which are out by several metres. In Italy, where Navionics are based, sea depth may not be so important for navigation but it certainly is where I sail!
Any publisher of data, whether marine charts or encyclopaedias, should surely state where their data comes from and how it is verified. I think we should be told!
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I hope Navionics is a great deal better than Wikipedia...
prv
Well-Known Member
Well, I subscribe to it, but I don't bother to take the plotter cards back and forth between home and boat on a regular basis to update them. They get a refresh at the start of each season, as I said, same as the paper ones.
(Maybe swanky modern plotters have an Internet connection and can update in-place, but I have a 10-year-old C-Series and a new-but-very-basic Lowrance. Online updates on board are the stuff of science fiction
)Pete
RobbieW
Well-Known Member
When your boat is your home for whatever period, updates onboard are the norm. The limiting factor is the size of download; using 'Freshest Data' thats a product refresh not an update, for the Med (43XG) thats in the region of 1.5-3GB for both chart and depth data (depends on the area you select to refresh). Adding the option for SonarCharts has about doubled the download size required.
prv
Well-Known Member
Sure, I meant for me on my boat. I don't have a computer on board, or any Internet connection apart from my phone.
My plotters don't support it
Pete
tony_lavelle
Well-Known Member
Incidentally, spelling mistakes and incorrect names (eg Sharp Ness renamed to Sharp Point) suggests that the data source is not digital but paper, with text re-entered by keyboard. This does make me wonder whether they got the data from UKHO or simply copying from paper charts, supplementing with crowd-sourced information. As someone pointed out, it's odd to find marina symbols, complete with phone numbers, in the middle of nowhere in the estuary. There is one completely imaginary marina called "Medway Pier Marina" next to Gillingham Marina. It could be refering to Gillingham Pier, where there are council moorings, but is not shown in the right place for that.
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westhinder
Well-Known Member
I do not think I will ever subscribe to the SonarCharts. If you think for a moment how the data are produced, from individual boats of which it is unclear how the sounders are calibrated, and without info on how the state of tide is worked into the numbers, there is only one possible conclusion: highly unreliable, so stay away from it.
Bru
Well-Known Member
Well, I subscribe to it, but I don't bother to take the plotter cards back and forth between home and boat on a regular basis to update them. They get a refresh at the start of each season, as I said, same as the paper ones.
(Maybe swanky modern plotters have an Internet connection and can update in-place, but I have a 10-year-old C-Series and a new-but-very-basic Lowrance. Online updates on board are the stuff of science fiction
I must be living in an alternative reality then
My plotter is a steam driven Raymarine and I don't have any problems at all periodically updating the chart card when I'm on board via either marina wi-fi (on a good day) or MiFi over 3g
OK, granted if you eschew the use of a laptop on board and don't have internet access it's not so easy
But clearly the underlying statement is that you're happy with just annual updates to the charts you use for navigation whether they are paper or digital. Fair enough
prv
Well-Known Member
The scary thing is that they seem to be incorporating this data into the "main" set as well, or at least that's where I assume the phantom channels into St Vaast came from. A boat or two went over the Run at high tide, Navionics screwed up the offset, and suddenly there's a deep channel there. Since very few boats take that route for obvious reasons, there was no other data to compare with. I don't really care what they do with a user-submitted layer I can turn on and off and take with a hefty pinch of salt, but putting unchecked data into the "official" charts is unforgivable and must put a serious dent in the confidence of everyone who uses them and hears about this. It's certainly going to affect how I use my Navionics plotters, and I rather wish that one of them could display another type of chart for comparison. Instead I'll be checking the paper charts more carefully in unfamiliar places.
I assume this struck some non-sailor in the company as a clever way of "differentiating" themselves, but it has the potential to seriously backfire.
Pete
prv
Well-Known Member
Exactly. I actually don't own a laptop (I have a company-issued one for work, but that mostly stays at the office). I have a Mac Mini on my desk at home and an iPad that covers all my personal portable computing needs. Even if I did have a laptop (I used to), I'd be unlikely to take it sailing. I only take the iPad on longer trips, and tend not to use it much.
Obviously this is a completely different habit to someone who lives on board longer-term.
Yep. Plenty of yachts happily toddle around with antediluvian charts, and/or chart cards bought with the plotter and untouched since, and they're not constantly running aground or getting lost. Even before GPS, when a changed light character could seriously throw your navigation into confusion, I don't get the impression that everyone was rigorously applying the NtMs every week. So a spring update is good enough for me.
Pete
Cantata
Well-Known Member
Likewise at Margate it shows 'Margate Marina'. There ain't one and never has been
Frankly I've always been sceptical about Navionics and doubt I shall ever use it now. My plotter uses C-MAP and I now start to wonder where their data comes from. But, being old-fashioned, I have real charts (corrected enough for my purposes) on a table anyway and don't rely on the plotter, it's just an extra handy aid in the cockpit.
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Bru
Well-Known Member
I do acually totally ignore the facility symbols on Navionics charts, they are rubbish! They show marinas were none exist, anchorages that are not anchorages and the facility details are wildly inaccurate.
Angele
Well-Known Member
bobgarrett
Well-Known Member
I chose to use CMap on my tablet using Plan2Nav. I chose this (i) because I have Navionics on my Raymarine plotter so this gives another view, (ii) Navionics have/had a poor reputation for software stability and upgrades on tablets, (iii) Navionics never even replied to an email I sent re upgrading my Raymarina plotter chart data. This thread gives further support for my choice. I would also add that while sailing in the Baltic last year I identified 2 major errors in the positions of major features (an island and a harbour) in the Raymarine Navionics data which were correct on the CMap info.
Finally, I am surprised Navionics have not responded in this thread to set out their policies - unless they now realise they are at fault.
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How often do CMap update? Annually?
Vega1447
Well-Known Member
I sail on L Derg (Shannon navigation in Ireland) and noticed at least one lateral mark missing on their recently updated chart of the lake.
I notified them and TBF they replied immediately asking for location info which I supplied.
Let's see what happens now..
I notified them and TBF they replied immediately asking for location info which I supplied.
Let's see what happens now..
